Even the most jaded Microsoft Windows fan will admit, grudgingly, to an occasional bout of "Mac curiosity". Since Steve Jobs' return in the early part of the century as part of Apple's acquisition of NeXT, Apple's trajectory has risen, and they currently sell several million Macs per quarter, representing (depending on whose analysis you read) about a 10% share of the domenstic PC market and landing them in the top 5 computer companies in terms of U.S. sales. Their market capitalization current ranks them as the second largest company in the world, and they may overtake Exxon this year.

A "Hackintosh" is a computer that runs Apple's OS X operating system on non-Apple hardware. This has been possible since Apple's switch from IBM's PowerPC processors to Intel processors a few years ago. Until recently, building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles, but in the last few months, building a Hackintosh PC has become much easier. Benchmark Reviews looks at what it's possible to do with PC hardware and the Mac Snow Leopard OS today, and the pros and cons of the building a Hackintosh computer system over purchasing a supported Apple Mac Pro.